The official promotional poster for “Imaginary”. Phote credits by IMDb.
The latest horror movie has come out! “Imaginary” is the newest movie directed by Jeff Wadlow and produced by Blumhouse Productions, which is the same production company who made “Paranormal Activity” and the movie adaptation “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” “Imaginary” stars Dewanda Wise, Taegen Burns, and Pyper Braun as the main characters Jessica, Taylor, and Alice. The movie is rated PG-13, with minor cursing and some bloody scenes.
The movie starts off with showing a nightmare Jessica, the stepmom, is facing. Said nightmare revolves around getting chased by a humanoid spider creature in an endless building filled with doors. After she wakes up, it is revealed that Jessica and her new family are going to move back into her childhood home. Obviously from this knowledge, it is clear to the audience that there is something wrong with the house, because this is a horror movie.
Soon after the family moves in, the youngest daughter, Alice, develops an imaginary friend. But big surprise, the imaginary friend is not imaginary. Turns out Jessica had also had the same “imaginary friend” as a child, but she could not remember it. Shared by Jessica’s childhood babysitter, the imaginary friend had terrorized her family when she was younger, which eventually led to her father getting institutionalized.
Once all of this is revealed, the imaginary friend tricks Alice into joining him in a “special world.” Jessica, Taylor, and the babysitter all have to fight the imaginary friend in an “Insidious” movie-inspired place filled with doors that lead to those same types of humanoid creatures that were in Jessica’s dreams. Stuck in a giant world full of mind games, it seems near impossible that the rest of them will be able to successfully escape. They soon find Alice however, and convince her that this place is not as great as it seems, which breaks the curse. In the end, they are able to escape and leave, but not before a few more mind games are played on some of the characters.
Unfortunately, many people who watched the movie did not enjoy it. While judging a movie on the reviews left on Google is not the best way to figure out if you would enjoy the movie, it is good to at least check them out. Currently, Rotten Tomatoes has this movie at a score of 25%, IMDb is at 4.8/10, Google Reviews being at 3.1/5 stars, and Metacritic is at 34%.
From reading the reviews, many people have stated the movie was too cliche, has too many jumpscares, and that the movie tropes are overused. One even said “Please don’t waste money watching this movie. All the “horror” is in the trailer. Everything else is garbage.”
However, it is always important to keep in mind that even if others did not enjoy said movie, it could still be entertaining for you.
